102 STATE OF PRESERVATION OF BONES IN GERMAN CAVES. 
argillaceous or marly earth, as in the cases of Gailenreuth, Zahnloch, 
and in the Hartz, and that some of this earth, from an analysis by 
M. Frischman, was found to contain a large proportion of animal 
matter. 
In the caves of Gailenreuth and Mockas, a large proportion of 
the bones is invested with stalactite. Even entire beds, and heaps 
of them many feet thick, are sometimes cemented together by it, so as 
to form a compact breccia, but they are never found in the substance of 
the rock itself. At Sharzfeld and in the Carpathians, they are some¬ 
times enveloped with agaric mineral (lac lunas); they have undergone 
no alteration of form, but the larger bones are generally separated 
from their epiphyses. Their usual colour is yellowish white, but 
brown where they have lain in dark-coloured earth, as at Lichten¬ 
stein. At Mockas their degree of decay is by far the greatest; 
even the enamel of the teeth is far gone, and the bones are perfectly 
white, having lost all their animal gluten, and acquired the softness 
and spongy appearance, as well as colour, of calcined bones; still 
their form is perfect, and substance inflexible, and, when struck, they 
ring like metallic bodies falling to the ground. These retain 
simply their phosphate of lime. In other caverns they are usually 
less decayed, but they sometimes exfoliate and crack on exposure to 
air, and the teeth, particularly, are apt to split and fall to pieces, as 
are also those at Kirkdale *. 
destroyed. The bears, on the other hand, not being exclusively carnivorous, nor having 
teeth fitted for the cracking large bones, have left untouched the osseous remains of 
their own species. 
* It is mentioned as a curious accident, that of five caves in the calcareous hills, 
near Muggendorf, that flank the valley of the Weisent-stream, three on the north chain 
contain not a fragment of any bones, while two on the south side are full of them. This 
